Someday We'll Create
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1501: At fourteen years old, Lily Chang is every bit her parents' child, and she's really started to get into one aspect of their lives. - Chang Squared series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 71st cycle. Now cycle 72!_

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**"Someday We'll Create"  
(Older) Mike/Tina, Lily (14yo)  
Chang Squared series  
_(all series now listed under communities tab in my profile)_  
**

Lily had grown up in dance studios. She had spent so many hours of her life sat in the corner of one of those rooms that she could say with nearly complete certainty that she'd spent more time there than at school, sometimes more than at home. She wasn't complaining, not at all. By the time she had turned fourteen, she wouldn't have had it any other way.

She was a fast learner, and her mother would say she was the spitting image of her father when she would sit to watch and her feet would move in time with the dancers on the floor. When it was just her and her father and/or her mother, she would get up and join them, doing the steps with them. She was thirteen by the time she'd started really taking it seriously, and now at fourteen she would sometimes work with them, like an assistant.

Then one day, they had made a proposition to her. They were casting younger dancers for a show they were working on, and they offered for her to try out. She couldn't pretend she wasn't interested, not when she'd squeaked the way she did when they told her about it. Her one concern was the prospect of being cast and having people think she'd been picked because of who her parents were.

"Tell you what," her father had told her. "The director's never met you, same for most of the team. If you want it, you can go in and audition. Don't tell them who we are, and if he asks when he hears your name, I think you and I both know it's absolutely common for two Changs not to be related," he looked her in the eye and she laughed.

"Well, what if I get it? They'll have to find out eventually."

"And when they do, you can make them say how they had no idea," Mike went on, and Lily went on smiling as she presented her hand to him.

"I can do that."

She had taken the secrecy very seriously. She had created her own audition piece, and she refused to let them see it. Both Mike and Tina had the tendency to want to see, so they might be able to give Lily pointers, but any time they came close, she would tell them to go. She wouldn't even let them hear the song, or they might have tried to make suggestions based off of it. They were being attentive and they tried to be helpful, which she appreciated, of course, but she wanted to do this on her own; she wanted to surprise them as much as she did the director and the rest of the people who'd have to take in her audition.

She was nervous, she couldn't deny it. She had spent her life watching her parents dance, and she idolized them. They said she was just as good as they were, if not better, and she refused to hear it. In a way, this 'secret' audition was exactly what she needed. She wanted honest, unbiased opinions. If someone who had absolutely no stake in whether or not they made her feel good told her that she was doing well, then maybe it wouldn't be so crazy for her to believe it, too.

The days leading up to the audition had been the most stressful she'd lived through in a long time. She knew her piece front and back, could do it with her eyes closed, but she'd gone and let her best friend put the fear in her that she would get up on that stage and the music would start and she would have forgotten everything. So she kept on practicing. Even in class, her teachers would have to warn her, or she would be dancing under her desk.

Then finally the day had come. She'd gone all on her own, took the bus, all so she could come in on her own, even though she doubted they would have their eyes on her from the moment she approached the building. It was the principle of the thing or something…

There were way more boys and girls waiting to audition than she'd thought there would be. The way she'd calculated it, she would have to wait several hours before her turn came. So she sat, and she waited, refusing to let herself get psyched out. Maybe this was a good thing. With all those people there, maybe they wouldn't pay attention to her name, and they wouldn't connect her to her parents.

The hours had dragged on, and Lily waited, and finally her name was called. She went on stage, and the only words they addressed her were to tell her to begin. She did her piece, and when she was done, they told her they'd let her know in a couple of days.

She had gotten a callback. Already, this was reason to celebrate, but she didn't want to oversell it. She hadn't gotten the part yet. Her parents were already buzzing with pride, telling her how well she'd done, which parts they had loved in particular and, because they were teachers at heart, they had given her pointers on parts that could have been improved. She could already imagine one or both of them having cried when they'd watched her, so she hoped no one had seen that.

She had been called back twice again, but on the last round, at the end of which the dancers would be selected for the show, she had not made it through. Her parents had been quietly outraged, but if she was honest with herself, Lily wasn't angry at all. She was a little disappointed, sure. She had worked really hard, and by the end of it she had really, really wanted it.

But she'd gotten so far when she hadn't believed she could. There would be other opportunities, and in the meantime, she would start taking it more seriously. She'd loved being out there, not just as the daughter on the sidelines, but the act in the spotlight. She'd seen what it was like, and she wanted more.

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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